Growing

It was a Sunday afternoon. Gregory had finished washing the dishes
and setting them in the strainer to dry. He wiped his hands on the yellow-and-white
checkered dish towel and looked at the message board on the wall to
his right. It was covered with twelve year's worth of photographs of
Marilyn's students.

He casually draped the damp towel over the metal bar beside the sink
and held his breath for silence. From the living room he could hear
the muffled TV sounds and once, in a rare moment of television silence,
a hissing burst of steam from the iron. He looked out the window over
the sink, the afternoon sun detailing the garden in a crisp brightness,
and he felt dislodged from himself.

"Are you forgetting something?" Marilyn asked. Her sudden
voice startled him, and he spun to see her standing just inside the
open doorway. He took one step forward, thinking to hold her for a minute,
but her arms were folded across her breasts, and she had that weary
look on her face. She smacked her lips and made a pointing motion with
her chin.

He turned back to the sink, but didn't see anything amiss. That made
him panicky. The dishes were all done, stacked in the strainer, and
the stove and countertop wiped clean. What could she mean? What had
he done this time? His mind scattered, he was unable to focus, and the
sweat ran in heavy, fast-moving drops from his armpits down his sides.

"The towel," she said at his back, "as always."

Like a man given a reprieve, he let out a loud sigh. He quickly spread
the dish towel neatly over the bar. The panic left, and he felt only
mildly jittery.

"Do you want me to leave the ironing board up for you?" she
asked.

Her hair was close to her skull, with a small wave on top, and he thought
of how she used to wear it when they met--past her shoulders and ironed
so it'd be straight. She hadn't gained much weight over the years, and
he looked her over admiringly. Then he turned his head, ashamed. He
knew. They'd discussed it any number of times. Marriage was no excuse
for sexism. "Are you finished?" he asked.

"For today," she said. "I have papers to correct."
She stared off beyond him, as if trying to recall something without
thinking about it.

"Did you want to do anything tonight?" she asked. "Go
out?. . .or stay in?" He looked down at the floor.

The kitchen seemed to shrink on him. The broad, white floor tiles loomed
up, the swirled ceiling dropped, and the walls angled in at the corners
to close around his head. He remembered the light outside, its sharp
clarity on the green plants in the garden, and he said, "I'm going
out." He smiled tightly at her. "Work in the garden."

"It would make sense, while the iron's hot. . ." she said,
raising one eyebrow and smiling. But she didn't insist, so he left.

He
felt better outside, not so cramped, and he stood for some minutes in
the middle of the garden, taking in the damp earth smell through his
nose and telling himself he had a good life. Things were fair. Wasn't
that the point? Wasn't that what he wanted? He bent to a squash plant
and pushed its broad, scratchy leaves aside, looking for the fruit.
What he saw made his breath catch. There, attached to the vine, long,
green, and tubular, was not a zucchini, but a penis.

He ran inside, set up the ironing board, and accepted Marilyn's gently
berating comments. She teased him, saying, "Did you see a snake
in the garden?" But he wouldn't answer. He stood in a silent sweat,
ironing his clothes, as Marilyn watched the tennis match, the news,
and Wild Kingdom. That night, she was in the mood, and he worked
on her with his hand. She said it was fine, it didn't bother her that
that was all he wanted to do, but she sounded disappointed.

He checked every evening when he came home from work. The situation
worsened. It began with the squash, but soon spread to the tomatoes,
where the penises were rounder, but penises nonetheless. From the boughs
of pepper plants, curved penises hung by stems. Lettuce sprouted, leafy
nests with stumpy penises at the cores. Small, thin penises dangled
from the bean vines. Once he dug up a radish to find a plump, red penis
rooting from the sprouts.

Everything
he'd planted grew into a penis. He felt by turns terrified, guilty,
and humiliated. He took to buying vegetables at the supermarket, sneaking
them into the garden beneath his suit coat, rolling them in the dirt,
and then presenting them to Marilyn as if these were what he was growing.
Once, briefly, he wondered if he could eat the penises from the garden.
He imagined cooking up a plate of them, rolled in flour and fried, or
chopped and steamed, maybe diced for soup. He was certain, though, that
Marilyn would never accept it.

At night, in bed, he tossed, febrile, waking in the dark to the pushing
sounds of what he was certain were the penises growing. One Saturday,
he turned a few of the larger ones under, covered them with soil. When
he returned the next day to check on them, they'd already reared up
through the earth once more. He was afraid to pick them -- where could
he hide them? -- but afraid if he didn't pick them, sooner or later
someone would notice.

The more they grew, the harder he worked in the house, doing not only
his share, but a portion of Marilyn's work, also. She smiled and thanked
him, but took no special notice of it. He lived in fear of the day she'd
ask him if something were wrong. What would he say?

The garden was abundant. How long could he hide it from her or the
neighbors? For now, the stockade fence would prevent anyone from finding
out, but sooner or later. . .Twice, at night, he was awakened by a loud
thumping. He was certain a watermelon penis was moving across the lawn
towards their house. He sat up in bed, anxious lest Marilyn awake, then
crept cautiously from under the covers to peek through the window. Outside,
the pale moonlight gave everything a soft, bluish tint. Everything looked
like a stage set, not quite real. Yet, when he returned to bed, the
thumping continued.

When the sunflower plant, towering higher than the fence, began to
unfurl its flower, he knew he couldn't avoid it any longer. Instead
of seeds, there, clumped in soft, green rows in the pod, were hundreds
of tiny, pointed penises.

They
stood at the edge of the garden at dusk. Marilyn shook her head. "These
were growing all this time, and you didn't even tell me? What about
communication?" she asked.

He held his arms out, his mouth open as if he were a receptor for answers.
She turned and strode to the house. He followed her with quick, mincing
steps.

He made her a cup of tea and handed her a butter cookie. They sat at
the kitchen table. "It's not my fault," he said as she dunked
and chewed. A sore spot flared on the tip of his nose and he rubbed
it, feeling a slight bump, like a large pimple.

"Gregory, you're the one who planted the seeds." She pursed
her lips, looked away, and shook her head. "You certainly had to
know what was going to come up. You could've at least told me."

He looked at the formica tabletop. "I had no idea. Honest. I didn't
want them to grow. I've been happy." A sudden pain slammed him
backwards in his chair. It spread from his nose through his face and
made his eyes water. "I'm not that type of person," he told
her. Something pushed smoothly out the tip of his nose. Focusing his
eyes straight ahead he saw it--a long, straight penis.

Marilyn looked at him in horror, stood up, and backed away. She crouched
in the elbow of the cabinets by the sink.

"I love you, I love our life," Gregory said, turning to her.
The penis sprouted forward and poked her in the stomach. She put the
palms of her hands to its side and swung it away from her.

Gregory grabbed his head to keep it steady. He watched her out of the
side of his eye as he spoke. He kept on talking, trying to explain.
The penis grew even longer. It burst through the kitchen wall into the
living room, then smashed through the plate glass picture window. It
passed over their front yard, knocked down a telephone pole, and crossed
the street. It extended west, across the country, then travelled to
the Orient, then around the world. It plunged deep into the void of
space. The sun darkened and the moon rose and he continued talking,
all through the night. No matter the words, no matter the sentences,
no matter the rationalizations, he just could not get it to stop.

Richard Krawiec has published three novels. You can
purchase wherever fine books are sold.